It’s been a while since we’ve had an opportunity to blog about the things we’ve been up to this summer. We’ve been working hard to get out some of our favorite beers to all your local favorite watering holes and liquor stores. We’ve also participated in a few pouring events which have been great fun. In fact coming up this Friday we will be at the Craft Beer with Vineyard Liquors Tasting Event at The Brick Lounge in Plano, IL from 5-8 PM. Feel free to come out and sample some great beer and say hello.

In addition to producing beer and hanging out and pouring beer, we’ve been busy in the lab cooking up some new recipes. The first of which will be available later today at select locations and later this week and next week at all of our local spots. The style as you might have guessed is a hopped up APA(we can’t help ourselves we love the style!). The hop profile on this beer is dramatically different than our other APAs. Buoyed by Mosaic & Simcoe hops(among various others) it’s quickly grown into one of our favorite recipes and we’re excited to share it with you. So head on out and welcome Vulture Dragon American Pale Ale to the Radium City family.

We’ve got more new stuff coming this fall and we’ll have more announcements about upcoming events as they get closer. We look forward to seeing you guys out and about and on the internets on facebook, twitter & Untappd.

It’s been just under a year since our first commercial beer was handed over the bar at Shaker’s on June 12th of 2015. It’s been an exciting year that has seen us grow from being available on tap at two locations to delivering kegs and bombers to 16 locations in both keg and bombers all throughout Starved Rock Country. We’ve met and worked with a lot of great people over the course of the year and none of it would be possible without all of the appreciation and support from our partners in commerce and the consumers. So thanks & Cheers!

In honor of our first year, we’re celebrating with a brand new beer, Infinite Zest American Pale Ale a hoppy American pale ale that’s infused with grapefruit zests. It will be available this Friday at your local RCB watering hole/retail store.

In other news, we’ll be pouring beer with our friends from Tangled Roots at Ottawa Two River’s winefest this weekend from June 10th-12th. Our collaboration with Tangled Roots name Five Too Many will be available. Additionally, we will have Spaceman Whiteboard American Pale Ale, Spaceman Blackboard Double Black American Pale Ale and Infinite Zest Available. We’re also excited to have some new merch available as well in the form of Spaceman Whiteboard American Pale Ale T shirts that will be available at the fest. Come down and say hi and try some of the beer from the two local breweries in Ottawa, IL.

We hope to see everyone down at Winefest and are looking forward to another great year in Starved Rock Country. Thanks again for all the support, Cheers!

It was just about two years ago that Radium City Brewing participated in the inaugural Morel Fest Mashup Home Brew Tasting. At that time, aside from some late night discussion fueled by too many beers, we thought opening a commercial brewery was nothing more than a fantasy. Morel Fest in 2014 changed that forever both by providing us the opportunity to get feedback from the public and for allowing us to get to know a lot of the great folks of Starved Rock Country who are just as passionate and interested in good beer as we are. Good beer is not a fad, and those who are discovering how good beer can really be are only gaining in numbers. Events like the Morel Mashup Home Brew Tasting allow fantastic, original beers to pollinate the palates of those not yet indoctrinated.

In honor of Morel Fest, we’ve been sitting on one of our favorite recipes and will be releasing it Friday May 6th in celebration of the event: our mushroom porter, Dark & Shroomy, bombers of which will be available at JJ’s in Ottawa; Haze Smokehouse in Lasalle, IL; as well as Herman’s and all of our regular bomber retailers. Dark & Shroomy will also be available on tap at Shakers Bar & Grill, The Red Dog Grill & Tangled Root’s The Lone Buffalo in Ottawa, IL; Duffy’s in Utica, IL; and Uptown Grill in Lasalle, IL.

Additionally, also available on the 6th will be our Barrel Aged Clock Out Stout. We’re excited for folks to try the barrel aged version of our signature stout. Mostly available in bombers, it can also be found on tap at Shaker’s in Ottawa, IL and at Duffy’s in Utica, IL.

Though we won’t be selling beer at Morel Fest, we are releasing these special beers at the same time as a nod of thanks and celebration of this great annual event. We encourage anyone who digs good beer to go down to the Home Brewers Tasting Tent and Competition on Ottawa’s Jordan Block this Saturday, May 7th to try some of the fine offerings of local brewing clubs like Mash and ALES; we’ll definitely be down there to sample some ourselves.

As we celebrate Morel Fest by releasing our eighth and ninth beers available in bombers, brewed on our new brewing system, we want to thank all of you for all of the support we see on social media. Brewing on our brand new system required some changes in methodology and scale that we had to navigate. As we’ve continued to work with the new system, we’ve gained a more nuanced knowledge of how to approach brewing on this larger scale and the benefits it has to offer. We’ve been gauging your valuable feedback and will be circling back to some of your favorites with the belief that beers such as Passing Time IPA and Fashionably Late APA will be even better on their next release. We hope you’ll agree.

Thanks as always for the support. Hope to see lots of you down at Morel Fest.

First off, thanks to all of you who have gone out and purchased bombers. It’s difficult to articulate just how gratifying it is to see our beer on the shelves at our favorite local liquor stores in the area and even more gratifying to see the feedback on social media and Untapped. We’d also like to thank Herman’s Package Store, Regal Liquor, and Shakers of Ottawa; Rudy’s Liquor of LaSalle; Hy-vee of Peru; and Vineyard Liquor of Plano, who all promote and carry RCB bombers. We offer another heartfelt thanks to Amanda Hart of Amanda Hart Design for all of the great work on our labels. And of course, without the support from beer connoisseurs both near and far, none of this would be possible, so we raise our pint glasses to you.

Onto the news: More Bombers!

We have more bomber labels approved and ready to go. We’re always playing with new beer styles and recipes, looking for ways to get variety out to the consumer. We currently have six beers ready for bomber production with more in the works.

The next two beers set for release in both keg and bomber form are Spaceman Whiteboard APA and Fashionably Late APA. These are two of our personal favorites, and we’re eager to see them on the shelves. Look for Spaceman Whiteboard in roughly two weeks and Fashionably Late the week after. As always, we will let you know when they are being delivered. More announcements coming soon on what will be available in the future.

When we first started designing a way to get our beer to market, we knew we had to start small. It just wasn’t feasible for us to start with a big system and a taproom; we all have occupational and familial obligations that wouldn’t allow us to go all in from day one. Still, it was just an idea we couldn’t let go of. We knew that if we didn’t pursue this dream, we would grow old and gray, wondering what would have happened if we had taken that chance, wishing we had.

Getting our licensing approval and launching this year was truly a dream come true. Seeing bartenders at Shaker’s, The Red Dog Grill and Duffy’s pour pints of our beer never gets old (aside from having to shell out our own cash for our own creations). More importantly, the response we’ve gotten from people has been better than we ever possibly could have imagined. We’ve met many local craft beer aficionados and local homebrewers who are just as passionate as us about enjoying and making great beer. As if that weren’t enough, we’ve interacted both in person and via social media with a surprising amount of people from all over the country who have stumbled into Starved Rock Country for either business or pleasure and by chance happened to sample and enjoy our beer. The feeling of satisfaction from someone trying and enjoying our beer really never gets old and to have seen so many faces light up when sipping a pint is worth all the gold in Fort Knox.

It’s been a truly rewarding six months but through it all there has been one lingering problem. How do we get more beer to market? We began bouncing ideas off of one another and exploring various avenues of expansion. The fruition of those many ruminations, debates, and discussions has finally arrived in the form of our brand new 3 bbl electric brewing system.

This is a huge leap forward for us and we couldn’t be more geeked to brew more beer at 3 times the capacity. It’s certainly the product of the diligence of four dummies continuing to hone in on their craft, but more importantly it’s a testament to the palates and truly amazing support of the folks in Starved Rock Country. Thank you for all the support. we hope that you’ll continue to enjoy our beer in local pubs, your living rooms and anywhere your pursuits make take you.

It’s been a busy few months here at the brewery as we’ve been working to keep up with demand, get new recipes to market, and add a new location to our small LaSalle County distribution reach at Duffy’s in Utica, IL. In addition to that, we’ve been working on some other measures to get our beer into your hands for your imbibing pleasure.

We couldn’t be happier to share some good news with you tonight: we’ve received TTB label approval for two of our established beers to come to market in a new form. Both Clock Out Stout and Passing Time IPA will be available in 22-ounce bombers at select liquor stores in the very near future!

You can see one of the label designs posted above, created by local designer Amanda Hart. Check out her amazing work at Amandahart.net. If you have any need for design work, she’s the gal to get a hold of.

We’ve got a few more logistical hurdles from now until the time you can enjoy some RCB in the comfort of your own home, but this will be a reality within the next 30-45 days. We’ll have information on locations and specific dates very soon.

We’re still working on some more things behind the scenes as part of our mission to get more quality beer into the hands of the good folks of Starved Rock Country and beyond. Thanks for your continued support.

Good news everyone! Another month and another new beer, our EKG ESB Ale is being delivered today! This is one of our favorite recipes, it’s an American twist on an old English style ale that is smooth, approachable yet still packs a unique flavor. We can’t wait for you guys to get out to Shakers, & The Red Dog Grill to try one of our favorite beers.

Also, we’re positively thrilled to announce that our beer is now going to be available at Duffy’s in Utica, IL. Duffy’s has long been known for their great craft beer selection and we couldn’t be more excited to be a part of their lineup. This is an exciting time for us (more on that soon) and we can’t wait to share more good news with all of you craft beer enthusiasts in the Starved Rock Country area. In the mean time we hope you get out to Shaker’s, The Red Dog Grill, & Duffy’s to try some EKG ESB.

The final modifications, calculations and preparations have been made. The Spaceman Whiteboard APA is ready to launch. The Spaceman’s trajectory will have it landing at Shaker’s Lounge in Ottawa, IL on Friday September 25th @ 6 PM.

Radium City Brewing brewers will be on hand to help celebrate the mighty ship’s voyage. A new selection of merchandise will be available and Road Angel will be performing for your listening pleasure. We hope to see you out there to help us celebrate our 8th different beer since launching in June of this year.

Last night at the Red Dog Grill was one hell of an event: sky diving, live music and a lot of friendly & familiar faces. The response to our newest beer, Half Past Red, available exclusively at the Red Dog Grill, was beyond what we could have hoped for. It’s a beer we really enjoy and we’re happy that you guys feel the same way.

It’s also exciting for us because we believe strongly in beer diversity. As craft beer consumers we’ve always enjoyed trying new styles and recipes from our favorite breweries. Bringing our sixth beer to market after two months on a 1 BBL system is something we’re really proud of.

Even more exciting is that we have two new brews that’ll be available within the next 30 days or so: Annie’s Pale Ale, named after Dennis’s great-aunt who worked at the Radium Dial plant, and Spaceman Whiteboard Pale Ale. Both will be coming to Shaker’s and the Red Dog Grill to travel down your gullets post-haste!

We’re doing everything we can to make this little engine go and as always we’re working hard behind the scenes to find new avenues and alleyways to get our beer in your hands. Stay tuned as things develop and we’ll make sure to get the word out as more exciting news comes our way.

It’s been a little over two months of commercial operation and we could not be happier with the response to our beer. It seems like folks are embracing drinking local here in Starved Rock Country. Additionally, we’ve heard great feedback from people passing through town from as far as the east coast and even from all the way in Vancouver, Canada. For four guys who had nothing more than an earnest desire to get our beer out to like-minded folks from our home town we are completely overwhelmed and humbled by the response. Since the genesis of our plans to make our beer commercially available we’ve been excited about making great beer that we had wished was locally on tap. Another integral part of this project has always been a diverse variety of beers for people to try.

In that vein, we’re really excited to introduce another great beer to the line up. The Half Past Red will be launched this coming weekend on August 22nd at the Red Dog Grill at Heritage Harbor in Ottawa, IL. The Red Dog Grill has been a fantastic advocate of our growth and we are thrilled to offer them this exclusive hoppy red ale. It’s one of our personal favorites and will be exclusively available out there going forward. As usual, the folks over at The Red Dog have turned what could be a small beer launch into an amazing event that will include live music by Katie Belle & The Belle Rangers not to mention sky divers dropping down at the event to produce the inaugural tap of Half Past Red. You can never accuse the folks at The Red Dog of going small.

We hope you take the time come out. All of us will be there to chat with you guys and talk craft beer. There will also be RCB merch available. The festivities start at 5:30 and the music will begin at 6.

Launching new beers is something we’ve been excited about for a while now, we couldn’t be more excited to get this beer out to you guys but we’re even more excited to tell you that as far as new beers go, this is just the beginning.